Psychoanalytic Criticism In William Shakespeare's Hamlet

Psychoanalytic criticism takes on the methods utilized by Freud. It asserts the concept that literary text are similar to dreams. It works as a way to reveal suppressed desires and anxieties that the writer might posses. Psychoanalytic criticism also upholds the idea that a literary work is a reflection on their own psychological disorder. Similar to psychoanalysis, the attempt is to seek confirmation of open emotions. Many of the writer’s own trauma’s when they were younger, obsessions, struggles,etc., can be distinguished inside the literary work through the characters. William Shakespeare achieved this through his well known tragedy, Hamlet. Throughout this play, you see the difference in Hamlet as well as Ophelia and the way they act towards …show more content…
He wants the actors to not exaggerate so much so that no one will suspect a thing. The actors are going to be acting out Claudius killing King Hamlet. Hamlet then asks Horatio to help him observe Claudius’s reaction to the scene where they reenact the killing. After Hamlet is done speaking to Horatio, he goes to take his seat. As Claudius is settling into his seat, he asks Hamlet how he is doing. Hamlet responds by saying, “Excellent, i’faith, of the chameleon 's dish. I / eat the air, promise crammed. You cannot feed / capons” (Shakespeare III.ii.99-101). Hamlet is basically brutalizing Claudius and plays on the belief that he will be on the throne. Essentially foreshadowing that he is going to kill Claudius. During this part in the play, Hamlet is acting insane. When he is about to take his seat, he starts harassing Ophelia and asking if he can lie on her lap. You can see just how insane he is in this scene. Hamlet will go to extreme measures to prove that Claudius murdered his father. This obsession he has with avenging his father starts to take over every living moment. He can no longer contain his rage against Claudius for everything that he has done. A question that we can ask ourselves during this act is, what is Hamlet’s …show more content…
The Oedipus complex assesses that the infant has the desire to discard the father and become the sexual companion of the mother. As Freud said, “‘It is the fate of all of us, perhaps, to direct our first sexual impulse towards our mother and our first hatred and our first murderous wish against our father. Our dreams convince us that that is so’” Hamlet has always had a deep connection with his mother, even at a young age. You see this is more prevalent when Hamlet says, “‘Seems,’ madam? Nay, it is. I know not ‘seems’” (Shakespeare I.ii.79) he is mourning his father’s death and stay in court only for the love of his mother. This theory bring up questions whether Hamlet was jealous of King Claudius because he was married to his